Can the EU funds promote regional resilience at time of Covid-19? Insights from the Great Recession11We thank the Editors and the four anonymous referees for helpful comments. We also thank Emanuele Ciani, Alex Cooper, Ugo Fratesi and the participants at different seminars and conferences for their helpful comments and suggestions. The views expressed in the paper are those of the authors and do not reflect those of the institutions they are affiliated with. The usual disclaimers apply

This paper makes some contributions to the policy discussion on Covid-19. We present real-time evidence on the effects of the coronavirus crisis on regional employment in Italy, by finding that the current shock is producing major adverse consequences in the South and on female occupation. We document that both the absorption and the allocation of the EU funds can sustain the resilience of regional labour markets, by reducing the employment losses at time of Covid-19. We construct regional employment adjustment scenarios based on information and estimates observed during the Great Recession. We discuss the limits of our approach and future developments.